Today, we continue our series of insider comments from the former writers of Cycle magazine, a publication gone from news stands and mailboxes for fifteen years but, judging by our e-mail in-box, anyway, still not forgotten by its faithful readers.

Today's submission is from Ed Hertfelder, who filed a hilariously funny off-road column at Cycle for years. Hertfelder may very well be the best humorist to ever work in US motojournalism.-- Editor

My main connection with CYCLE was Cook Neilsen who always thought my screed was far better than it actually was.

After publishing some of my longer stories in the late '60's—the best of which might have been UNAWARE IN DELAWARE a mud-slot to mud-slot account of the Delaware State Enduro which I rode, and finished, with a mini-recorder on shock cord around my neck. It is a tribute to the electrical engineers at Sony that the thing survived the beating it took as Delaware was always—and still is—a strange enduro where you might climb out of a muddy flooded field trailing soybean vines onto a six lane highway where snot nosed kids in station wagons in the next lane wonder why the motorcycle rider doesn't just stop and unlace the vines instead of trying to break them by smashing them down into the highway with his boots.

And a mile later following arrows across the well-tended backyard patios of nice folks seated at umbrella-topped tables offering glasses of iced tea to any rider willing to trade lost points at the next checkpoint for the opportunity to avoid death by dehydration.

Strangely: here it is over thirty years on and I'm still asked for photocopies of UNAWARE.

Cook asked me to do a monthly column and my THE DUCT TAPES—inspired by the Nixon tapes in the news at the time—and the fact that the stuff is absolutely indispensable to enduro riders—is still being inflicted on readers every month.

CYCLE ran the column from February 1977 to January 1985 when it transferred seamlessly to the February issue of Petersen's DIRT RIDER to run until February '02 when, seamlessly again, it picked up in the March issue of TRAILRIDER.

Subscriptions are available at www.trailrider.com.
Please extend my "THANK YOU" to Lew Turlington of LA who turned me onto your web page.